Purchased worms will die. Instead, mix in 2 inches of compost every season. Existing worms will multiply.

Is this a new bed? If so...give the wormies time...they'll find it.

If it isn't a new bed...don't worry about it. If the wormies think it's viable, they'll show up. If not...they won't.

I've known a lot of folks that buy worms, only to have them die. If soil isn't suitable for worms, they can't survive in it.

I agree with forpityssake and jean. We have the worst clay that anyone has ever had and you couldn't have found a worm if you tried. We just kept adding organic matter in the form of leaves, rotted horse manure, kitchen scraps, straw....whatever we could manage to find and they showed up by the thousands! Each year, the soil gets better and the worms get more numerous. One thing I have noticed, and maybe this is what is going on with you, if the dirt is dry, they do tend to go deeper.

Worms die in soil that they are not accustomed to, so don't bother to buy any. Keep enriching the soil with organic material and they'll appear after several years. As the soil gets healthier, the worms will multiply.

Soil type? Latitude? General region?

Most non water-logged soils in peninsular Fl, for example, do not support worms.

I notice the worms in my garden soil are usually gray in color - although not always.

The purchased worms are red worms - the kind usually used by fishermen. These are great for use in worm bins and will multiply easily, if the bins are kept healthy.

I like the idea of having a nice well-working worm bin handy near my kitchen, to catch all of the table scraps. The most recent one was situated under a macadamia tree and that tree produced a large amount of nuts for several years. Then, unfortunately, I neglected the bin and the tree has not produced as well since. I figured the lechate which exuded from the bottom tray - had fertilized that tree - producing a bountiful crop - honest!

Anyway, I intend to start another red worm bin - the original was a 2-story affair made out of tote bins - one on top of the other. Holes were made in the bottoms of both bins for drainage, and to allow the worms to find one or the other bin more favorable to them. Too much garbage will kill them. Too little - will starve them.

I started the bedding with shredded newspaper, added lots of coffee grounds, ground up larger pieces of left over veggies - a sort of slurry, to get them started. Once they had multiplied enough - I reversed the bins - putting new shreddings in the top bin, adding a scoop of stuff from the bottom one with worms - then adding stuff as in the first bin. This process worked well for 2 years. Once the bins became full - usually bottom - use the compost in the garden. This will attract worms in and around your vegetables - so long as they are interested in the food available. As the above posts remark - if the soil is dry, they will go deeper in the ground, but return and you will note more during the rainy season.

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

Thanks for the advice, everyone. Yes, it is a new bed, on top of new sod, since I bought my house which was new construction here in northern Alabama. And the soil underneath is so poor it gives clay a bad name. So, I think all of you are right - the underlying soil doesn't seem to support worms and it'll just take some time with various amendments to create a more hospitable environment under the beds.

The new construction is the answer, simply the massive disturbance and imported fill eliminated the worms. A clay based soil should normally be loaded with worms because it stays damp.

usually with addition of lots of organic materail and in our case anything rottable from in the house pretty much the worms come flooding in, you can buy composting worms and put them in the garden but then you need to put enough material in to keep them fed, in our case again we say our wormery actions happens in the garden where it is needed.

they will eat all sorts of rotting material, but food scraps are great.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens straw bale garden

we have generally decent dirt up here but narry a worm to be found in new construction. it is a decent scenario to introduce some worms, imo. go to the old part of town and walk around during a rainstorm, there should be plenty of worms to collect.